


i wake up alone (is it today or is it tomorrow?)

by seafret (nokomisfics)



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers to Friends, Friends With Benefits, Kissing, M/M, Swearing, Texting, boys being confused about their feelings, boys following their impulses and then regretting it after, boys trying to be friends and failing miserably at it, excessive use of the word 'popstar', honestly what kind of goals, is that a tag LOL, normal friendly activities like jogging and sex, pig dog is obviously the only one who's keeping it together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokomisfics/pseuds/seafret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After last Friday, Nick wasn’t expecting to see Louis Tomlinson again so soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. some call it a sham but i don't find it so

**_what u wearing ?_ **

_ You trying to sext me, tomlinson _

**_what have you got on, nicholas_ **

_ Trackies and a tee, not quite dressed to impress on a saturday morning I’m afraid _

**_think u can put on a pair of running shoes and come find me before all the girls on this side of london do ?_ **

_ Is that a challenge, tomlinson _

_ Where u at _

 

* * *

 

“You  _ could _ have just called and said you fancied a morning jog,” Nick says when he catches up with Louis at the top of Primrose Hill. 

Louis turns quick, but the grin stretching across his face takes its time. “Now where’s the fun in that,” he says with satisfaction, sharp blue eyes no doubt taking in Nick’s Britney tee already drenched in cold sweat, his chest heaving up and down as he takes in lungfuls of air. Wanker.

“You alright, then?” Nick asks, hands on his hips and looking around. “No mob of screaming fans and security trying to get you out alive?” It’s pointless asking, and when he looks back at Louis he’s just got an eyebrow raised. Nick bends over then under the pretense of catching his breath, and lets himself evaluate the moment, something he hasn’t yet done since he sat down for breakfast and got Louis’ text instead.

After last Friday, Nick wasn’t expecting to see Louis Tomlinson again so soon.

They hadn’t really - well. They’d talked about it. About the falling into bed, and how that had to stop. Or, really, Nick had talked about it - to the walls, it felt like - while Louis tried to distract him first by throwing cereal into his hair, then by straddling his lap and kissing his neck nice and gentle. Which was unfair, because Nick had told him about his sensitive neck in  _ confidence _ . He should have known the man would use it against him.

They’d gotten around to talking about it eventually, though, and Louis had nodded seriously while Nick said, “This is the last time we’re doing this, alright?” What he didn’t say was  _ I need to get my life together _ , and  _ you’re nearly half twenty and I’ve got to be too old to have a fuck buddy. _ The agenda for this weekend had been to go out lots and a find a nice boy who’d fuck him good and treat him well. Marry him, adopt a cocker spaniel for Pig to be best friends with, move into a nicer house in a quieter neighbourhood, that sort of thing. He’d called up Aimee to tell her about his plans. He’s being  _ serious _ about this.

“You ready, then?” Louis asks while Nick’s still bent over, breath all caught up. Nick straightens up and shoots him a glare, about to say something about how we can’t all have the stamina of a young popstar who’s got to do three hundred bench presses a day, Tomlinson,  _ really _ , but then Louis is taking off down the hill, pink soles of his Nikes flashing in Nick’s face, and Nick only allows himself one soft groan before following suit.

It’s been a long, long time since he last went on a morning jog. They’d talked about it lots, more often than not after going at it especially hard in bed, talked about going for a jog in the morning early enough to miss the crowds. There was a route that worked especially well from six to half eight, Louis had always said, starts at Trafalgar Square and takes you up Primrose Hill, and then down to the west side of Regent’s Park and then Westminster Palace. Said he’d been running it for ages, ever since they’d got back from tour for the first time and Louis needed to do something on the regular so he’d settle into his bones. When Nick pictured it in his head, it felt almost sad - Louis, in his fancy popstar apartment, sitting on the sofa or lying in bed curled up around his phone and looking at jogging routes in London.

It must be the same route they’re following now. It takes a whole two minutes for Nick to catch up with Louis’ steady pace - stupid popstar and  _ stupid _ workout regimens - but he takes the time to study him. He’s got on baggy sweats and a plain grey tee, already soaked with sweat, and not the kind that Nick’s soaked in - the hard-earned kind that says he’s been going at it for a long time. Louis doesn’t sweat easily. His hair is long, yet to be trimmed, and tucked under a black snapback although the ends of it curl at the base of his neck, sticking to his skin. His arms look - good. Nicer than the last time Nick had seen him, although that’s definitely an overthink on Nick’s part. It’s only been a week, and if Nick knows Louis at all it’s highly unlikely he spent all seven days pressing it at the gym.

Louis slips on a pair of sunnies as they approach Regent’s, and Nick is caught between incredulousness - who wears sunnies while  _ jogging _ \- and awkward solidarity. Not that he’s had that many people approach him in the streets to ask for a picture and an autograph (everyone in London thinks Nick Grimshaw is old news, it seems) but he’s not stupid. He’s friends with Harry Styles, he knows how it goes.

As it happens, they make it to Westminster Palace without anyone recognising them. The walk back to Primrose isn’t as fun, with the streets already swarming with people forcing them to stick together, sticky arms bumping into each other every now and again. Not that Nick’s got problems with his arm touching Louis Tomlinson’s as they head back from a morning jog. He just - doesn’t really know what to say, or how to  _ be _ with Louis when it’s outside of his place or Louis’. He realises, incredibly belatedly, that this is the first time they’ve actually been out together.

Louis is quiet the entire way back, up until they’re standing in front of Nick’s house and Pig is, no doubt, scratching at the front door waiting for him to let himself in. He goes up the front steps and fishes his keys out of his pocket, and turns around to find Louis at the foot of the stairs, looking at him curiously. “Haven’t slept,” he says finally.

“Jesus,” Nick swears under his breath. His heart pounds something fierce, at the quietly exhausted look on Louis’ face, the paleness of Louis’ face that he’s only just noticed, stupid  _ stupid _ . “Stupid,” he says out loud, even as he sticks his key in and gives it a jiggle, and then pushes the door open to let himself in. Louis follows him wordlessly, crouching down to give Pig a nice rub as she sniffs excitedly at their ankles.

Nick goes to check on the heating, not because it feels off, but just to give his fingers something to do, give his stomach a chance to figure itself out. When he goes back into the living room Louis’ standing gingerly at the foot of the sofa. He looks painfully awkward.

“I can go,” he says, at the same time as Nick says, “Stay and have a kip.” Louis blinks, and Nick has to stop himself from laughing, sure it’ll come out on the wrong side of manic. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, trying very hard to use his normal voice, and not the weird deep one that Louis says he uses when he’s trying his best to be polite. “Have a wash, alright? Find something comfy to wear. You can even have the bed, if you’d like.”

The corner of Louis’ mouth pulls up in a half-smirk, his eyes twinkling. “Well,” he says slowly. “If I can have the bed.”

“Said you could, didn’t I.”

“You sure did, Nicholas.” And,  _ god _ , Nick’s missed this. It’s absurd how it hits him so suddenly, how much he’s missed Louis in his house and around his dog and taking the piss out of him and calling him  _ Nicholas _ . Nobody calls him Nicholas, not even Aimee.  _ Grimmy is fine _ , he’s used to saying, except it didn’t work on Louis and he’s since stopped trying. He hadn’t even noticed how fond he’d grown of the nickname until Louis wasn’t around to call him that anymore.

It’s just been a week. He’s being stupid.

“Off you go, then,” Nick says, nodding at him with his chin. There’s a moment where Louis takes an aborted step in his direction, almost like he wants to - well. He doesn’t, anyway, and shoots him a small, fleeting smile before heading in the direction of Nick’s room confidently. He’ll never apologise for his presence, that Louis. Might be Nick’s favourite thing about him.

Now that Louis is out of sight, Nick allows himself to lean against the dinner table and rub at his face tiredly. He’d fallen asleep at half past midnight last night -  _ despicable _ for a Friday, Aimee would say, except he’s an old man now so she can shut up about it - and woken up at six without an alarm. Working mornings at the Beeb will do that to a man. But his body’s protesting, and he hasn’t yet had anything to eat, so he goes into the kitchen to fix himself a cuppa and dig out some cereal to pour into a bowl.

He can hear the shower turn on while the kettle comes to a boil, and then hears it go off again as he’s starting in on his cereal. When he goes into his room to check up on Louis, he finds him wrapped up in Nick’s duvet, curled in on himself, sound asleep.

 

 

Louis wakes once the sun’s about to set. Nick has since taken a bath of his own and finished a load of laundry, graciously including Louis’ sweaty jogging clothes in the pile, and done the dishes that have been piling up in his sink since Wednesday. He’s really got to get his dishwasher fixed. He’s gone through the emails in his inbox and replied to the ones that were urgent, ignored the ones from Finchy trying to make plans for next weekend because he  _ always _ cancels last minute and makes Nick do his hair up for nothing. 

He’s standing at his back door trying to coax Pig back into the house because the skies have darkened since the afternoon and he doesn’t quite fancy wiping the floor after her dirty paws have gone all over and made a mess, and he’s staring down at his phone at the same time because Aimee’s texted twice about where to be and at what time tonight, and that’s when Louis stumbles into the kitchen, scrubbing at his face, looking lovely and disoriented.

For a full moment, they look at each other, and Nick’s not sure what to say. And then Pig’s bounding in and tackling Louis, because her weird puppy sixth sense knew he’d come in before she could see him, and of  _ course _ she ignores Nick one moment and then throws herself at Louis the next. Louis goes down again to give her a proper cuddle, and when he looks up at Nick the moment’s broken, and Nick can grin without any weirdness in his stomach.

“Had a nice one?” Nick asks, leaning against the sink. “Off like a bulb, you were.”

Louis grimaces, rubbing absently at Pig’s coat as she enthusiastically licks his face. “Long night,” is all he says.

“Yeah?” Nick’s eyebrow goes up, quite without his permission, and it’s fun to be the one making Louis flush, even if it’s just this once.

“Not like that,” Louis rolls his eyes, huffing a laugh and pushing Pig away gently. He gets to his feet, and then looks at Nick again and says, “ _ Honestly _ , Nicholas.”

“Been a week, hasn’t it,” Nick teases. “Popstar like you, never been patient.”

“I’m not  _ gagging _ for it,” Louis says. He doesn’t, thankfully, note the way Nick inhales a quick, sharp breath, going instead to the stove and fiddling with the kettle. “Fancy a cup? Unless you’d like me out fast-like. Any plans?”

Nick looks down at his phone again. He has an agenda, hasn’t he? Except it’s not - doesn’t seem very urgent anymore. He can do it next week. No rush.

“Nah,” Nick says easily. “Quiet night in, just me and me pup. Glass of wine. You know me.”

“Not if you’ve taken up  _ wine _ in the past week I don’t,” Louis says, impressed. He’s already filled water in the kettle and put it for boiling. He’s always been this way, moving around Nick’s place like he grew up fixing a pot in this kitchen. It used to make his head spin in the beginning, when Nick knew the sounds he made in bed and how he went quiet when he came, and very little else about him. Now it just feels familiar, like an old song on a rainy day.

He watches Louis dig through the cabinets for food and emerge with a tin of scones that Nick’s mum brought with her last time she came down for a visit. Louis had come by for dinner on her last night in London, and they’d ended up exchanging embarrassing stories about Nick the entire evening. And then she’d retired to the guest bedroom and Louis had pressed Nick into the fridge, right here, and kissed him slow and long and heated, before leaving. Nick had wanted him to stay, but even he isn’t that stupid.

Louis comes to stand in front of Nick now, holding out the tin of jam scones, already biting into one in his hands. “You’ve been awfully quiet today,” he notes, mouth crumby and disgusting.

Nick wrinkles his nose and picks a scone for himself. “Not quite sure what to say to a sleepy popstar,” he says finally, taking a bite.

Louis looks alarmed for a moment, before laughing. It comes out sounding stilted and wrong. “Come on, Nicholas,” he cajoles. “Not like we’ve never had a conversation before. We just did more of… other things.” He grins wickedly at him, and if he looks more comfortable doing this than anything else, well. That’s Louis Tomlinson for you.

“And we aren’t doing those other things anymore,” Nick notes helpfully. It’s a very nice scone, cold but not yet soft, just the right amount of crumby, and raspberry jam in between. Nick’s favourite kind of jam. He swallows the last of it and wipes his hands on his jeans. Louis’ standing awfully close, and their knees bump together when he fidgets.

“We aren’t,” Louis agrees, reaching into the tin in between them for another one.

“So what are you doing here, then?”

He doesn’t mean for it to come out like that. He doesn't mean for it to come out at all. Louis’ hand pauses in the tin and he takes a step backward almost unconsciously, just far enough that their knees don’t touch anymore. Nick doesn’t realise he was looking down at Louis’ eyelashes until he’s too far away for Nick to see them anymore.

“Just thought we could have a jog,” Louis says, and Nick can hear the defense go up in his voice, see his shoulders stiffen under Nick’s old A$AP Rocky tee. He’s frowning down at the tin like the scones have done him a particularly nasty and personal offence, and all of a sudden he looks like the Louis who first started fucking around with Nick, defensive and distant and insistent that there wasn’t anything between them, until Nick fucked into him the first time and made Louis whine helplessly into the sheets.

“Besides,” Louis says again, before Nick can say something stupid like  _ you can come by whenever you like _ , and  _ I’ve missed you _ , and  _ what’s going on, Louis, really? _ “Coulda said no if you wanted to. Gave you a choice and everything.”

Nick knows an out when he sees one, and much as he wants to go the other way, this time he take it. “Didn’t give me much of a choice, did you, Tomlinson,” he says with a grin, and hooks his foot around Louis’ calf to pull him just the bit closer. “Sounded a bit like a challenge to me, it did.”

Louis lips twitch upwards in an aborted smile, and he looks up at Nick from under his eyelashes and says, “Did it.”

God, he’s a pretty one.

There’s a moment where Nick hesitates, but it gets lost in the air between them, and Nick doesn’t know who moves first, although he’s half sure it’s him. Then the next moment they’re kissing.

Louis makes a noise against him, and pushes the tin onto the counter beside the sink to hook his arms around Nick’s neck and pull him, impossibly, closer. Louis is so warm, his lips burning into Nick’s as he presses in, and then there’s a flash of tongue and the bottom falls out of Nick’s stomach.

Louis is the first to pull back, but even then he tucks his face into the crook of Nick’s neck, and Nick’s sure he’s not imagining how it burns where Louis’ lips press into his shoulder and muffle a quiet sound there. He’s grinding his hips into Nick’s, and making carefully desperate sounds, and Nick doesn’t have to guess to know where this is heading.

“Louis,” Nick says, and it only makes Louis press his hips into Nick’s thigh harder, and Nick’s hard too - how could he not be, he’s always had a weak spot for a needy Tomlinson - but this is. It can’t happen. They’d  _ talked _ about it.

He comes to his senses enough to realise his hands have settled in the delicate curve of Louis’ waist, and once he’s aware of them they move of their own accord, pulling Louis closer, until Louis gasps against Nick and his hips stop moving, allowing him to relish in the careful precipice between so much and  _ too _ much.

Nick thinks, if he doesn’t stop them now, he never will. “Baby,” he says quietly into Louis’ ear. “You’ve got to - “

Louis is drawing away immediately, before he can finish the thought. Nick’s eyes slide across his face and - god - this is somehow worse; Louis’ pupils have blown wide, his gaze - once a sharp blue - now unrepentantly black. His lips are bitten pink, and he has two spots of red high in his cheekbones. Nick is this close to pulling him back in and -

When Louis huffs a laugh, so does Nick. They break eye contact, look away, separate so that they aren’t touching in not one spot. “Oops,” Louis says, and then laughs again.

“Oops,” Nick agrees, feeling wrong-footed and a bit like he’s lost the plot. And, as Nick is wont to do at times like this, he begins to ramble. “That shouldn’t have happened, I’m  _ so _ sorry, I don’t know what possessed me -”

“I should -”

“I mean, since we  _ talked _ about it, didn’t we, had a proper chat and everything, we  _ really _ shouldn’t go back and -”

“I can go?”

Nick blinks. “No, no,” he says, belatedly trying for casual. “Don’t be silly. We can order something in. Put on the telly? I’ll bring our cups out.”

Louis looks at the kettle that’s since come to a boil, and when he looks back at Nick, his eyes are soft. “What  _ possessed _ you,” he repeats, without any inflection.

“Well.” Nick smiles apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he says again, although in hindsight he’s not quite sure who’s to blame. It was the both of them, probably, but he’s always been the quicker to apologise.

“Say that once more and I’m gonna start feeling really bad,” Louis tells him, the light back in his eyes. Nick turns back to the stove, at a loss of anything else to say to make this - better, somehow - and Louis ambles out of the kitchen. A moment later, the telly goes on, and Nick digs out the old packet of Yorkshire still in his cabinets to the sound of Louis channel surfing in his living room.

Louis sticks around for another twenty minutes, long enough to catch the ending of the episode of Bake Off that they’re showing today. Nick hasn’t kept up, so he stays quiet as Louis whoops and cusses out the lad that’s been voted out of the proceedings today. Then Louis stands, and declines Nick's offer to order in something from the curry house for dinner. So Nick stays in the living room feeling terribly awkward as Louis disappears into his bedroom to change back into his freshly laundered jogging clothes, and then he slips out of the front door without much of a fuss.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hm short non-chapter that takes place a couple weeks after the first part. louis is away for the american leg of tour, is jetlagged, texts nick and then regrets it.

 

It’s three in the morning and Louis hadn’t thought he’d been that jet lagged, he’d even fallen asleep for a bit earlier and then woken up to his stomach growling angrily like he’d been purposefully starving it for days. He hasn’t. He stumbles out of bed and down the stairs of harry’s posh LA flat anyway, scratching at his bare chest idly and groping around the dark for a light switch once he gets to the kitchen.

There isn’t anything in the fridge except a pack of frozen carbonara, that he sticks into the fancy microwave. It takes him a moment to figure out how to get the damn thing started. There’s a loaf in the bread bin that he takes out to butter and set on a tray, and once the carbonara’s done he brings it to the counter with his buttered bread and settles down to dig in.

Only after he’s eaten all of the carbonara and half of the loaf does he think of checking his phone. He’s got a few messages here and there, one from Fizzy telling him to text their mum back, and another from his mum asking him if they’ve landed alright. He feels a bit guilty as he taps out a belated reply; he usually makes it a priority to text her after every flight, but they’d been swamped at the airport when they’d landed earlier, and Paul was already worn thin from having to figure out the logistics of shuttling Louis away to Harry’s flat in a manner that wouldn’t tip off the fans.

He texts her now to tell her he’s alright, and then forwards her their tour schedule this leg because she’d asked for it the last time they’d skyped. She must be working a shift now because she doesn’t reply immediately, so he opens Twitter to have a scroll through in the mean time. Nick’s been tweeting something about missing Douglas Booth while he’s off recording in New York, and before Louis really knows what he’s doing, he’s opening up a text to Nick and sending off, _how come u never whine over twitter while I’m away in america_

Nick replies almost instantly; it’s about late afternoon there, and a Saturday to boot. usually he’s off his face on Saturdays. _the best kind of mourning is done in the heart, darling_ , he’s said. While Louis is thinking of what to reply his phone buzzes with another one. _but i’ll fire off a couple tweets about missing your incredible arse if that’ll appease you_

Nick’s finished it off with three emojis of a peach and another of a tongue. Louis wonders idly how the internet would react if he were to take a screenshot and put it on his twitter. Then he wonders how Hattie would react, the young intern who’s in charge of his Twitter account as of late. He decides today’s not the day to put her out of job.

 _tell me more about my incredible arse_ , he sends back. He leaves his phone on the counter and goes to put the carbonara away and return the half loaf to the bin, and then he brings his phone with him to the living room and sinks into one of Harry’s many ridiculously lush couches. He curls his legs underneath him and tries to tell himself that this is nothing, really, just some innocuous flirting with a man half a world away. It’s half three now, and the house is eerily quiet.

 _naw i’m sure you’ve heard it all_ , nick texts back. _flight was alright then? didn’t say goodbye before you left_

_aww did i break your heart, grim?_

_don’t really care, me, although pig was in a bit of a strop._ three emojis of a puppy follow, and another distressed face emoji. Louis rolls his eyes.

_haven’t you got anything to do besides be dickhead who projects onto their dog?_

_you texted me, tomlinson._

Louis bites his lip at that. _you’re not preoccupied now, then?_

_what are you asking_

_hands free?_

_not going to bring you off over the phone, love, if that’s what you want._

Louis’ face flames immediately with something close to shame. That wasn’t what he’d been asking. It wasn’t.

 _it’s not_ , he sends back.

 _suit yourself sweetheart_. There’s a full minute where Louis is convinced Nick’s going to leave it at that, until he follows it up with, _innit an obscene hour of the night for you?_

And, well. Louis knows a dismissal when he sees one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me about tomlinshaw over at [ my tumblr](http://fuckrys.tumblr.com) :))

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about tomlinshaw on tumblr @fuckrys :)


End file.
